As a child, I was always fascinated by magnets: why two ‘south’ or ‘north’ poles would never ever click with one another. It took a while to understand the reasoning behind it. And as with that, there’s a real wisdom behind this rule which prevents two saakin letters from meeting…

This rule has been looked at from a number of angles, however it was never formally mentioned on the site.

Man‘ iltiqaa’ al-saakinayn[1]: preventing two saakins from meeting (following one another) is that rule which is sometimes taken for granted although the Arabic language heavily endorses it.

The rule states: if a word ending with a madd letter precedes a word which starts with a sukoon, the madd letter is dropped so as to avoid/prevent two saakins from meeting; this of course only applies when continuing recitation. In replacement of the madd letter, its respective diacritic takes places (kasrah for yaa, fat-ha for alif, dammah for waaw). Here, it is important to note that madd letters in the Arabic language do not have a diacritic. They are considered to be saakin, and hence why this rule exists.